Quote of the Day

"We are seeing in Washington that the multiculturalism impulse - one does not use Western paradigms to judge others - is far stronger than the supposedly classical liberal idea that human freedom is a universal concept that trumps culture. In other words, multicultural foreign policy is a sophisticated and politically correct version of the old, far more intellectually honest realist notion that we let the bastards do what they want to their own people, and then deal with the thug that emerges in the real world of mutual self-interest."

-- Pajamasmedia.com today's article "Voting Present On Iran"

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Iranian Elections

It may be several days (or even weeks) before we know the actual results of the elections in Iran, but both Mir-Hossein Mousavi and current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are claiming victory.

There is a higher than expected turnout for the elections. Analysts are suggesting that most likely this is an indication of a desire for a regime change in Iran. Apparently the people of Iran are unhappy with the current administration's isolationist language and actions. Iran is also suffering from a poor economy.

Mousavi has been critical of Ahmadinejihad (my pet name for the idiot) for making military threats toward Israel, the United States and neighboring nations. 

What's interesting about this election is that no sitting president has ever been removed by a popular vote anywhere in the Middle East (not just Iran). The defeat of Ahmadinejihad would be a political earthquake in the region. 

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One of the Largest Muslim Nations in the World? I Don't Think So.

Isn't it funny that liberals have spent years falling all over themselves to protest when people call this a Christian nation, but now -- we now have the most liberal President in our nation's history declaring that we're a Muslim nation.

The reason this has been called a Christian nation is because it was originally populated by Christians seeking religious liberty, since it was founded by Christians, and since the population is still heavily Christian.

The reason we're now a Muslim country? Ehr...hard to say. We don't have an accurate count of how many Muslims we have in this country, but the number is generally thought to be under 3 million and many of them are from the Nation of Islam, which most real Muslims consider to be heretical.

Yet...

As President Obama prepared to leave Washington to fly to the Middle East, he conducted several television and radio interviews at the White House to frame the goals for a five-day trip, including the highly-anticipated speech Thursday at Cairo University in Egypt.

In an interview with Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." He sought to downplay the expectations of the speech, but he said he hoped the address would raise awareness about Muslims.

God bless the Muslims who are here in this country, but just to be crystal clear, we're not "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world" nor are we ever going to be "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

We're also not one of the "largest Muslim countries in the world" even if you count the Muslims in the nation of Islam. Here's a list of the world's largest Muslim populations:

Indonesia: 204 million

Pakistan: 164 million

India: 154 million

Bangladesh: 128 million

Turkey: 76 million

Egypt: 74 million

Nigeria: 73 million

Iran: 65 million

Morocco: 34 million

Algeria: 33 million

Afghanistan: 32 million

Saudi Arabia: 28 million

Sudan: 28 million

China: 27 million

Iraq: 27 million

Ethiopia: 27 million

In other words, this is typical Obama. He says whatever he thinks his audience, which in this case is the "Muslim world," wants to hear with no regard to facts or logic.

Since he's giving a big speech in Egypt, America is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." If he thinks you're concerned about spending, he's the guy you need to cut spending. If you want lots of expensive, new government programs, he's the man for that, too. If you're anti-war, he's the guy to reverse Bush's policies! If you're not, he's the guy who'll be smart enough to quietly keep them in place.

He gets away with this because the mainstream media has his back. When he makes the sort of mistakes they'd harp on for weeks with a Republican, they either give it a brief, perfunctory mention while spinning for him as best they can or they just ignore it entirely. When he breaks his campaign promises, and he does that constantly, the media shrugs and moves on. When he makes huge gaffes, they yawn and pretend to be disinterested. Essentially, Obama's playing the role of an incompetent, batty Soviet premier while the media is playing the role of Pravda.

That's a big part of the reason why the MSM is going out of business ever more rapidly and why Obama has been such a historical disaster as President, because he's constantly being given free passes on these huge screw-ups.

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Obama's Speech in One Sentence

I just read the following on another blog, and thought it was worth posting here.  It is a one sentence summary of Obama's "historic" speech to the Muslim world....

"I have no right to tell you how to live because we're as bad as you are, but here's how you need to live."

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Obama Goes To Cairo

I'm sure the Obama Mid East trip will generate may articles over the next few days. I won't try to cover all of what Obama said earlier today. I will make a couple of comments...

The first thing to catch my attention was when Obama said "...I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against the negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

Really? Since when, exactly? What other religions does Obama feel responsible to defend?

Let's take a look at one of the larger groups within our own country. A little religion you may have heard of somewhere along the way ... Christianity.

Has Obama been defending mainstream Christian groups who have been lumped in with the guy who shot George Tiller? Maybe I missed that.

I will give Obama credit, though. While many muslims, particularly in Egypt (from what I understand, anyway) have denied that al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, Obama said this:

"I'm aware that there's still some who would question or even justify the offense of 9/11. But let us be clear. Al Qaeda killed nearly 3000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women, and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people... and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale.... These are not opinions to be debated. These are facts to be dealt with."

At least on this point, he gets it right. I wonder if his audience heard him.

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Obama Throws Israel Under the Bus

In a not-so-startling speech, Obama makes clear that while he wants to build bridges with nations and people that hate us and will always hate us, he wants to alienate our only real ally in the middle east.

Tensions are flaring in neighboring Israel over the U.S. president's latest demands on the Jewish state. 

Top Israeli officials continue to rebuff Obama's call for the country to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank. Obama's demand, which he reiterated strongly in an interview with National Public Radio ahead of his trip, is seen as a far tougher stance than that taken by his predecessor in the White House. 

Whereas prior administrations generally opposed settlement construction, they allowed for "natural growth" of existing settlements. 

But speaking to NPR, Obama said he has told the Israelis "both privately and publicly" that their obligation includes a freeze on settlements, "including natural growth." 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have rejected that demand. And Israeli media have fixed on the spat as the U.S. president tours Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and later France and Germany, while skipping Israel. 

If Obama's actions in the prior four months haven't been enough, it should be obvious to everyone after this week that Obama should have the word "CLUELESS" tattooed across his forehead.

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Obama Needs to be Even Nicer

Apparently all the apologies and bowing to the Muslim nations is not enough. During the 2008 campaign, Obama seemed to think that he could solve the problems in the middle east (not to mention Darfur, North Korea, Russia, and everywhere else in the world) if would just apologize to everyone and "be nice."  They'll all listen. They'll all be happy to work with us. They want peace. They want to be friends with the USA.

Really?

Apparently, Obama hasn't been nice enough. The AP is reporting today...

Al Qaeda chieftain Usama bin Laden warned Americans to "be prepared to receive the consequences" of the Obama and Bush administrations, Al Jazeera TV reported Wednesday.

Bin Laden, in a recorded message broadcast by the Arab news network, said Obama had planted the seeds for "revenge and hatred" toward the United States in the Muslim world, Reuters reported.

The message comes as President Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia, a day ahead of his speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University.

Bin Laden says Obama inflamed hatred by ordering Pakistan to crack down on militants in Swat Valley and block Islamic law in the area.

He claimed U.S. pressure led to a campaign of "killing, fighting, bombing and destruction" that prompted the exodus of a million Muslims from Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan.

The message was broadcast at almost the same moment Obama touched down in Saudi Arabia.

FBI official says that — while the tape may appear real — investigators are reviewing the recording for authenticity and any other information that may help them.

The timing of this tape is not a coincidence given the timing of the president's Mideast trip.

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Iranian Rebukes U.S. Counterpart

A passing remark from the new American ambassador to the unUnited Nations, Susan Rice, prompted a rebuke from her Iranian counterpart. 

Toward the end of a speech to the Security Council about the situation in Iraq, Ms. Rice said the United States would “seek to end Iran's ambition to acquire an illicit nuclear capability and its support for terrorism.” She said Washington would also encourage Iran and Syria to become “constructive actors” in the region. 

In a letter to the president of the Council, Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee of Iran called the accusations baseless. “It is unfortunate that, yet again, we are hearing the same tired, unwarranted and groundless allegations that used to be unjustifiably and futilely repeated by the previous U.S. administration,” the letter said.

They'll continue to deny that they are trying to build nuclear weapons until they detonate one.  Let's hope it's not on U.S. soil.

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Hamas: Why are you bombing us?

I must say that I am completely befuddled by the general response by the world to Israel's attacks on Hamas.  It seems that most of the world's response outside of the USA (and Israel itself, of course), and much of the response within the US has been that Israel's bombings of Hamas has been, to use their word, "disproportionate" to Hamas' attacks on Israel.  

"Disproportionate."

What an awful sounding word.  Now, don't you feel duly chastised, Israel?  Bad country.  Bad, bad country.  (I hope you see me shaking my finger.)

Here is a typical example...

After several days of conflict in the Middle East, approximately 3,350 Gazans have been killed and another 1,450 have been wounded. On the Israeli side, three have died and three have been wounded.

Clearly, Israel’s response to the Hamas rocketfire has been disproportionate. In the beginning the targets were mainly stations of security forces, but the Israeli military operations have expanded to other targets, including police stations, organizations and other infrastructure. Women and children are being killed in Gaza.

The growing conflict reminds me of the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in 2006 that led to massive attacks on Gaza, and later Lebanon, resulting in utter destruction of civilian infrastructure and a great number of deaths. 

What they are saying, in effect is:  "You should wait until Hamas kills many more of your citizens before you start killing so many of their leaders, Israel.  Don't you know you aren't playing fair?"

My response to the world is ... "Uh ... DUH!!!"  

If you're in a war, do you really want your leaders to limit their response to a "proportionate" response?  Seriously?  

We should look at "disproportionate" responses throughout history.

Image this:  General George Armstrong Custer is leading his 264 men into battle against the Sioux and Sitting Bull.  Custer realizes that Sitting Bull is riding with over 4000 Native American warriors.  So he rides up to Sitting Bull, and says "Listen, Sit.  You have too many men.  This is disproportionate.  You need to cut your troop size down to ... oh, let's say about 100 warriors."  Sitting Bull's response?  I'd bet it would be "disproportionate". 

I suspect that all of these "geniuses" calling Israel's response "disproportionate" would consider themselves to be "anti-war".   It's ususally the so-called "anti-war" crowd that makes these sort of stupid suggestions.  What they need to realize is that "proportionate" responses prolong wars.  Disproportionate responses end wars and save lives.  

World War Two would probably still be going on had the US not dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.  Yes, it was barbaric.  Yes, civilians died.  Yes, it was tragic.  It also, more that likely, saved more lives than it cost.  Japan surrendered instead of drawing the war out for several more years, which they would likely have done, even knowing they were losing.  In fact, may of those civilians who were killed by the atomic bombs may well have been killed anyway following a US led land invasion of Japan, along with countless hundreds of thousands of other Japanese civilians and US and allied troops.  

So I say, Israel, continue the pressure on Hamas.  In fact, Israel, if you REALLY want to end the violence, you need to step up the retaliation.  Make it MORE disproportionate.  

There is a saying here in America:  "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."  For anyone reading this post who is unfamiliar with that saying, allow me to translate:  Hamas, if you didn't want Israel to respond in a "disproportionate" manner, you shouldn't have attacked Israel in the first place.

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